


Scars We Keep

by Val_Creative



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Derry (Stephen King), Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Explicit Language, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Humor, IT Chapter Two Fix-It, Injury, M/M, Movie: IT (2017), Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Polyamorous Losers Club (IT), Polyamory, Post-IT (2017), Pre-IT Chapter Two (2019), Reunions, Romantic Friendship, Scars, Stanley Uris Lives, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27863802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Being in love doesn't mean being in love with only one person.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 16
Kudos: 30





	Scars We Keep

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I'VE WRITTEN FOR THIS FANDOM. I AM SO EXCITED TO SHARE THIS. ❤️❤️❤️ Hope you like this!

*

Dark red blood trickles over her little, pale fingers.

Beverly stiffens herself up, waiting for Bill gently cupping her hand in his and slitting her palm open with the shard of glass. This is their _promise_ to each other as the Losers Club. A _promise_ to come back no matter what and defeat IT when they're older. 

She's the only one who doesn't flinch and cry. Richie curses under his breath, shaking off his hand like he can shake off the deep, stinging pain somehow and wiping off his moistened eyelids with his other wrist. Mike shudders in place, looking around to his friends. A grim-faced Stanley whimpers across from Beverly, clutching his fingers together. Ben's mouth thins together.

This is nothing compared to Greta Keene and Molly Anne Fredrick and Sally Muller bullying her. This is nothing when Beverly remembers how her dad sprays Beverly in the face with her mother's perfume, making her eyes water and Beverly's nose burn.

Bill's eyes look her over, and his mouth lifts into an encouraging smile. 

It's a kind of love that is rare and precious and innocent. For Beverly, she feels _undeserving_ of it. Still, Beverly loves him.

She loves all of them.

Eddie groan-sobs, looking at his bleeding hand as if he's gonna puke. Beverly instinctively goes to him, and so does Mike. They embrace him. Beverly nudges her forehead to the side of Eddie's head, and Mike digs his fingers in the overwashed pink shirt.

*

Sonia Kaspbrak orders him to bed— _you feel warm, Eddie-bear—you look pale—I told you to stay inside—you'll get sick—_

Eddie doesn't know how he managed to hide the cut from her. It's almost as if his mom doesn't notice it. He does. Eddie keeps bleeding and bleeding, and bleeding onto his quilt until Eddie sits up and removes the several Band-Aids covering his palm.

The folds of split-apart skin nudges open to Eddie's fingernail, glistening red. 

He swallows down his nausea rising.

Downstairs, Eddie's mom reclines in Frank Kaspbrak's worn armchair and falls asleep open-mouthed. Eddie waits until he's sure she is before creeping downstairs, grabbing a beer bottle and nursing it to himself. The cold soothes Eddie's bruised abdomen.

"I still say we bring a machine gun next time," Richie muttered when they all stood in a circle, holding hands. Bill and Stanley, no longer whimpering, snorted out laughter, the corners of their mouths twitching. Eddie felt the wind blow across the sunny, green field, hitting his sweaty cheeks. Mike's fingers wrapped around Eddie's, squeezing lightly, and Eddie didn't want him to let go.

He doesn't want to let go of anyone. 

*

When they've turned seventeen, and a year from graduating from Derry High, everything long before fades into a rosy glow.

Ben reinforces the Clubhouse so that it lasts, smiling widely as Eddie and Richie argue in the hammock. They kick each other. Stanley pass them by, rolling his eyes good-naturedly and drinking water from an orangish Scooby Doo thermostat. Ben listens to Bill and Beverly excitedly discuss their group project through the school hallways, greeting Mike outside on his bike. 

He crosses the railroad tracks with his friends, helping up a flush-faced Bill who trips and grabs Richie's arm. They visit Back Pages, the used book store, and Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, the thrift place. They watch movies at the Capital Theater and outrun a beating from Moose Sadler and Vic Cross and Belch Huggins when a horrified Eddie accidentally knocks his popcorn on them. Richie doesn't help by dumping his Coca-Cola, directing the blame on himself instead of Eddie.

It's in the middle of the night on April 15, 1993 when Ben notices the gigantic and rigid scar on Mike's palm. Something feels _familiar_ about it. Mike doesn't notice him noticing, happily clasping Eddie's shoulder and nudged Stanley forward.

They're coming back from one of Derry's local faires. Ben has the taste of chili corn dog in his mouth.

He glances down on his own left hand, finding an identical scar to Mike's.

But _where_ …?

_Where did they…?_

For a heart-pounding moment, Ben realizes he can't remember. None of it. Trying to remember is like feeling a sliver of living television static under his skin. He grabs onto Beverly's hand at her side, inspecting it carefully as if she's a puzzle piece. 

Beverly stares at him. Her lips tilt downwards in confusion.

"If you wanted to hold my hand, New Kid… all you had to do was ask," she teases. Ben's face goes red, Under the streetlamp, Beverly's red hair glows like winter fire. She's so pretty. Their fingers entwine shyly, and Richie blurts out, _"hey! save some for the rest of us!"_ snatching onto Beverly's empty hand, as well as Eddie's hand, pretending to lick her knuckles.

She bursts out into a peal of laughter, aiming a halfhearted kick at Richie who grins.

Ben's heart clenches at the thought of them moving away.

Would they forget each other…?

He never wants that.

_Never._

*

Richie spends an hour over video-chat with his parents. They're getting more and more grey.

He asks offhandedly about a long, ragged scar on his palm, lifting up his left hand. Maggie Tozier hems and haws, as she typically does when she doesn't wanna answer any of Richie's questions, while his father claims Richie hurt himself on his bike.

That makes sense. Richie gets a feeling that Wentworth Tozier is making a memory up, but it _could_ be true.

It's just sometimes he looks down at his palm and Richie gets an immediate twinge of fear and anxiety. It doesn't last. But also he gets the feeling Richie's not alone. That somehow there's people just like him doing the same thing with their same scars. Maybe that's fucking insane. Richie, a thirty-three-year-old adult man with a declining hairline, supposes so. He quits cocaine.

Richie traces his fingers around his palm, and daydreams in fragments. They glint like clear, jagged shards of glass. It's not fully formed memories but a flash of overwashed pink, or holding someone's blood-dripping hand, or smelling sewer-water.

Before going on stage in Las Vegas, Richie finds himself nervously pressing on the scar-ridge. As if comforting himself.

*

He doesn't wanna be here.

Stanley knows he shouldn't here back in Derry. Something's _wrong_. Mike called him, and Stanley packed his things without thinking and kissed Patty goodbye, but he doesn't understand what the fuck Mike means by a promise that Stanley made. 

It's good to see Richie again, even if Stanley knows he only vaguely remembers his childhood in Derry. Richie nearly knocks him over when they hug outside the Capital Theater, pressing his stubble-rough jaw hard against Stanley's cheek. 

Stanley complains monotonously but doesn't push him away, craving the warmth in secret. 

Beverly greets Stanley with an easygoing but lovely smile, undoing her beige trench coat, kissing him on the chin while going on her tiptoes. There's an odor of rainwater on her. Stanley mumbles Beverly's name, gazing her over wistfully until she hugs him too. Richie tries to kiss Stanley too, ending up with Stanley's deadpan look and an light knock in the gut from Ben. 

He can't remember.

Mike leads them to some restaurant called "Jade of the Orient" where they serve banquet-style Chinese food. Stanley doesn't know if he's come here. It looks new. All seven of the Losers order dinner, mumbling about their careers over expensive liquor.

There's an incredibly strong urge to look at his palm and Stanley refuses. He can't. 

Blood leaks slippery-hot between his fingers. Eddie and Bill stare down apprehensively at their palms slickened with red. Mike dabs off his with a napkin, calmly ordering them to do the same. _This is normal,_ Mike tells them. _It's Derry. They'll be alright._

Stanley doesn't wanna hear it. 

He's remembering.

He remembers the big water storage shed at Memorial Park, and how the padlock looked blown open. Stanley remembers the narrow set of stairs and dead children chanting ghoulishly and a white clown's glove in the darkness beckoning him. He remembers the large bird attacking them in the sewers, and Stanley yelling at IT as a bird that it wasn't real and defeating IT. Stanley remembers Mike's bolt gun and how the loud metallic clang echoed after it fired. He remembers Henry Bowers falling.

The woman in the painting — _Judith_ — Stanley remembers her. Her deformed face. Needle-teeth clamped to Stanley's temples and his face. She aggressively sucked his blood, growling and holding him down. Warm, stinking drool poured into his eyes.

Stanley remembers becoming paralyzed with fear, and he's paralyzed now.

_He doesn't want to be here._

_Doesn't wanna be here… doesn't wanna be here at all… he would rather be dead… dead… dead… dead… they're dead… they're all dead… dead… dead…they'll be dead and bled red… like the three dead laughing kids in the water shed…_

"Stan…"

Bill's concerned voice rings out.

Mike turns to Stanley next to him shaking his head repeatedly and muttering, lowering his head, tugging on his ear like a habit. "You don't have to stay and fight IT, Stanley. You came back to Derry like you promised. That's what you were supposed to do."

"C'mon, man…"

"Stan…"

"Stanley, please…"

He quivers in his dinner seat, looking up tearfully. "None of you will survive," Stanley whispers.

It's like a sudden hush falls over the table. Mike's forehead wrinkles. Eddie finishes off his drink, tipping back his head and coughing. Ben murmurs out Stanley's name. Richie pushes his uninjured hand over his face, groaning. Bill's jaw clenches up.

"Yes, we will," Beverly announces with a softened confidence. Everyone else glances to her with a mixture of doubt and amazement. "When I was in the deadlights, I saw you and Eddie. I saw you cut your wrists and die in a bathtub full of your own blood. I saw Eddie get killed by IT when we fought back." Richie's face drains of all color. He and Bill stare around wide-eyed to Eddie going tight-lipped. "That happened because you didn't come when Mike called. But you did, Stanny. You're here."

"Everything's gonna be different now…"

*

Pennywise never stood a chance, Bill thinks. Not against the Lucky Seven.

He pats off his mud-crusted jeans, listening to the victorious cheers and hollers of his friends around him as Neibolt House crumbles into dust.

They've done it.

They've killed IT for good and freed the town of Derry from the curse.

Eddie flips it off with both of his hands in the air, grinning like a maniac. Mike wheezes through his chuckles, gripping onto Stanley's arm. Ben falls onto the asphalt, running his fingers through his hair like he can't believe what happened. Richie and Beverly run to Eddie, clinging on and sobbing out in hysterical relief. Stanley wipes the vomit off his mouth, finally relaxing.

Bill's left palm no longer bleeds. 

He hopes wherever Georgie has gone after death… Georgie is proud of his big brother.

*

Mike stayed.

He had to — someone in the Losers Club had to stay in Derry and remember. Manning the lighthouse, or so he called it. 

"Get in the damn car, Homeschool!"

Richie beeps his horn. There's two other cars waiting for him before heading to the airport. 

Bill jogs up to him standing in front of a department store's glass window. He's covered with bruises and tiny swollen cuts just like the rest of their friends, but Mike has never seen Bill in higher spirits. "You good, Mikey?" he asks quietly, touching Mike's nape. 

Mike nods. "Yeah. I think so."

"Think we all are," Ben murmurs, coming to Mike's side to nudge him playfully. "It's thanks to you, Mike."

_"Alright, alright, you losers!"_

Richie hops out of his shiny red convertible, drum-rolling the hood. 

_"Who's up for an orgy!?"_

*


End file.
